The Last Line

Wholeness

It’s enough to find my way to the end

Of each careless step—knowing as I do

That no one is watching me take it.

So I should spread my arms out to each

Lively moment, each syllable, and say

Yes. I’m watching a fat squirrel poke

Her nose around a bird feeder.

The sun shines on her supple back

As she moves little paws through blades

Of grass, munching sunflower seeds

Cast off by profligate jays. There.

It’s an intimate observation, the gleam

On her back, the small precise paws.

When I rise to go, to finish my day,

I’ll have one hand on this image, one hand

Working the world, to try and fool

The mind into sewing steps together.

Have I confused the process of metaphor?

Nearness to me now, Little Beast, never

Leave me, never let me understand. 

  

In the Garden of Perfect Contemplation II

 

That I, too, can—-Bloom, fragrant in the warm

Wind that blows only now, this crucial moment

In the circle around the sun—-only now, again.

One more time I ask of you, my poem, to open

And reveal, show and release. There are rifts

I see, shadows under the sumac casting ever-

Moving patterns groundward that could be

The empty places, could be the purpose of light.

So I’ll praise you here, hare, and hope

It’s enough to find my way to the end.
 

Wisteria Blooms

Dividing the indivisible, in order to understand

Why in all this time I am still in all this time.

There is the infant understanding of the wisteria,

Its photosynthesis and blueness, but not of where

It comes from or why. I can stop waiting, I suppose,

For arrival, for the transport, the metamorphosis

I deserve: To reach into the wisteria itself

And know so intimately its leaves and tendrils

That I too can bloom, fragrant in the warm wind.
  

The Mystery of Symmetry

At once an epithet, a byname, an endearment, a curse

And a myth, Psyche, the Soul, floats through the garden

On dusty wings. She makes me brave—-I recognize

Her in myself, in the mirror, finding in that visage

That which does not change, that which finds sweetness

In sameness, that which recognizes. Break the line

In the middle, at the joint, and it becomes a book

About itself---a redaction, of course: the rule of thirds.

The image resides there, the sun setting on the garden 

Wall, the butterfly bumping around the columbine, a witness

To the workings of your mind, reader--myself--to the

Dividing the indivisible, in order to understand. 
 

Ten Ways to Say My Name

With no recrimination or even judgment or even grief.

On the skull mala, 108 times.

When the door opens in the early evening.

From across the street on Wilshire, surprised.

When my hands are cold, always.

Because the wine is good.

Lying in the grass, when the clouds move suddenly.

When you hit the brakes: fear!

Uncertain if I’m here (I am).

At once an epithet, a byname, an endearment, a curse.

 

A Calf Passes by the Poet in the Pasture

And pass he will, taller than the weeds—-for the present

Moment works in him like yesterdays and tomorrows

Work in you: This is when he is, the when of the trees

Grown a darker green with bug-eaten edges, speckled

With holes, and it’s the when of the dry brown grass.

It is deep summer. It is. His movement is deliberate

And so soundless. It is. Watching me watching him,

I realize I’m invisible until I become a threat to him

And to him alone—He is his only concern, no wisdom

Required until the day of his demise that I will ignore

In contemplation of the peace in his hooves,

The shine on his rich new fur, the black of his eye,

With no recrimination or even judgment or even grief.  
 

The Hillside Event

So excellent a journey; such fruition in the weeds

Of his memory, the bargain made with God: I’ll

Ignore you if you ignore me. The wild mustard waves

To him in the Santa Ana winds: Anything could be in there,

Worlds of birth and death. He hears the dog-day cicada's

Song with a latent wonder that won’t be recognized,

The tat-a-tat rattle received in his mind with slight disgust

But in his heart with wonder: God broke the bargain,

Unawares—-The mustard, wondrous yellow, such yellow;

The song loud, brazen! Listen. He claps his hands and silence

Follows, but not for long. They’ll sing again when he passes,

And pass he will, taller than the weeds, for the present. 
 

A Gossamer Life

Do more than fall, and wait to wake in darkness,

Waiting for the empty horizon of your faith to appear—-

It is your mirror, as you know: an illusion. Look

Down. See the dandelion in the crack in the asphalt.

It is the force of destruction, manifesting

Corrosion in bright, many-petaled yellow blooms,

A delicate mane of petals; like the spider’s web

It will become, taking the pavement and making

It a seed on the wind. This is what you’re dying for—-

So excellent a journey, such fruition in the weeds. 
 

Fragment No. 1

Is he the light? Or does he reflect the light?

                              --Katha Upanishad

 

Confused? You should be. Every chance you get--

And you get so many chances--Do Not Interpret.

That was the garden we walked in, naming,

Calling. But now we’ve seen wisdom. We know.

You aren’t your name. I’m not my name. I’m That,

Like you. Shining wisdom strikes the heart, a blade

Of light—It kills me, of course, and I can’t

Do more than fall, and wait to wake in darkness.
 

Trusting to Chance

Unforgiving sleep and ask no more questions

About tomorrow: Silence from me, quiet

From the air in the cypress trees, holding their

Fragile and primitive green. There are certain

Stolen things in the noiseless part of evening,

The promise before it’s broken or the seed

Buried or the switch on the wall (“off”). Catalyst

And cunning, I forget each time what the now

Knows, desiring change and so hungry for it

That I rush to it like I know what it will be.

But when this is over, and whatever it is

Has come, and I awaken, I’ll see it was

Gently here, and told me so, even as I slept.

Confused? You should be. Every chance you get.